Memorial Day Weekend Part I- Picnic at the Falls

This Memorial Day weekend, I decided lots of mountain exploration was going to be on my agenda.  The destination for Saturday: Brevard, NC, self-proclaimed Land of Waterfalls.  I've also been getting into the Farmer's Market scene more and more, so I had the idea in mind that we should get up early, hit up the local market, and scrounge up a locally-sourced picnic.  The Boyfriend had a better idea though- why not check out the markets in Asheville on our way up through the mountains?  So, we blindly chose two that sounded like the most interesting and ventured forth!

First stop was the Asheville Tailgate Market, which was in a lovely little shaded area of the UNCA campus (and for that reason, it will be the one I'm most likely to return to).

"Eat No Evil!
....I've slowly become mostly vegetarian, but I do eat a little evil still, sorry.

We scarfed down all the free samples we could manage (becoming quite a weekend trend for us), picked up some divine rosemary fig goat cheese, and I actually tried some sausage.  Vegan sausage.  And loved it! (note: I'm not vegan, and sausage is one of my most-hated "foods.")  Too bad we had no way of cooking it or a way of getting it home safely before it might go bad.  Next time perhaps.

We headed over to check out the Asheville City Market next, which had many of the same vendors, but there I was lucky enough to find the Turkish Delight goat cheese that was sold out at the tailgate market.  We found some suitable bread, a dessert, then stopped by the local Whole Foods market for things we were still missing and hit the trail, adorable picnic basket and all.

Triple Falls was our first destination.  The day was a bit more overcast and cool than we had expected, but those are ideal conditions for pasty ginger people, so we weren't complaining.  Boyfriend still put sunscreen on.

Mmm, what could be in this little basket?

TONS of goodies! (Sammich meat not pictured)

We picked up this lovely rye bread from The Simple Bread booth at the Asheville City Market, and the guy running the booth was kind enough to toss in a tiny loaf of sourdough for us, since my boyfriend was so enthusiastic about it.  It made for pretty awesome sandwiches!

I was a bigger fan of the rye and Turkish delight goat cheese though....

....even better topped with some Strawberry Basil Sally's Greatest Jam.  Sally herself was at Greenlife (Asheville's Whole Foods market) when we stopped in, and I was freakishly excited to see that she was setting up a tasting booth with all of her jams!!  I circled the store a billion times until she had it all ready to go, and she was kind enough to allow me to sample all of it, which completely made my day.  I HIGHLY recommend all of them! She has so many unusual combinations, all of the loveliest things, like Blueberry Lemon Thyme, Peach Mint, and Fig Sweet Onion Rosemary.  I told her I know I'll have all of them eventually, and I'm definitely trying out the recipes on her website.  Stay tuned...

The grand finale: Vegan Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffin by the The Herban Baker.  Completely delicious.

"Where is mine, Mommy and Daddy?" Char asks.  She got some turkey; don't worry.

 After our little lunch, it was time to explore/carry Charlotte up the waterfall to reenact a certain Disney movie scene.

Charlotte was totally thrilled about this, as you can see.

We wore our swimming stuff, but, uh, that water was just a touch too cold.

Next was a short trek down the hill to check out Hooker Falls, which was pretty meh compared to the other waterfalls, but the water was calmer and easier to wade into.

It took quite a bit of coaxing to get Char to go in...

"Nope, nope!  No thank you, Daddy!  Let me out of this stuff!"

Char is not much of a water dog, disappointingly.  I'll blame it on all the time she spends with the cats.

The second part of our plan was to wander around the White Squirrel Festival in Downtown Brevard until one of my favorite bands, Scythian, was to go on stage around 9 pm.  Our plans were ruined upon getting there and seeing "no pets allowed" signs barring the festival streets, however (boo-HISS-really?? It's an outdoor festival!).  So, not wanting to leave Charlotte in the car for hours, we just flitted through the festival quickly and made our way home.  Maybe I'll catch you next time, Scythian....

We did get to see one of the festival namesakes at least- a real white squirrel!